The integration of technology in the classroom has grown so much over the past decade that classrooms can’t afford not to have technology for the fear of every child being left behind. Technology is becoming commonplace in schools, and more importantly, it is taking over elementary schools. Elementary schools have adopted the idea of technology in the classroom and has run with it, having the young students create projects on it using different applications on the computer, completing electronic quizzes, and creating an electronic mail address so the teacher can electronically mail them to either explain what will be taught throughout the week or to remind the children to tell their parents about any kind of events coming up. There are multiple tools that a teacher can use to instruct their classroom on any and every subject, and they are easily accessible to anyone and everyone.
Using YouTube as an educational tool can be helpful for students who favor learning from a fun and educational video. YouTube provides a lot of educational videos on every subject that caters to the child's needs of being entertained while being taught a valuable learning lesson. It's interesting to see a simple website such as YouTube can provide key educational videos to help a teacher get their point across. Another tool that is underrated, but has been heavily used and been relied upon is the Electronic Mail (E-Mail). No teacher is perfect, so whenever they forget to say an upcoming event or a test that is coming up, the teacher simply E-Mail's the student or the students parent warning them of such events that are coming up. E-Mail is extremely important in the classroom, and is a very important tool in the classroom.
An educational tool that I have seen being used in the classroom is Google Earth. The teacher can take advantage of this tool and look up famous geographical areas such as: The Statue of Liberty, the Egyptian and Mayan Pyramids, and the areas where Lewis and Clark explored. I have seen Google Earth being used in a few of the classrooms where I observed, and the students seem to love it. Google Earth allows history come to life! Assigning a history project can involve using tools such as Google Earth and PowerPoint where students will have to use both to locate the area on the subject that they have been assigned and having to use PowerPoint to create a presentation. The opportunities are endless. Social networking has the ability to become a useful tool in the classroom. Facebook can be used to set up events going on in the classroom and at the school, and to help remind parents and students of any field trips, volunteering events, or even tests that may be coming up. Twitter can essentially do the same thing, and more. Twitter has the ability to look up different subjects by simply looking up a subject on the search bar, and many results will show up. Whether they are academic "tweets" or tweets from average people passionate about the subject, Twitter can be a great educational tool to research more thoroughly on a given subject.
There are so many different tools that I didn’t mention that can help aid teachers and students alike. There is essentially an endless supply of educational tools that can help teachers give unique lesson plans, and students to adequate research for a given project. These educational tools are a great help, and classrooms should take advantage of all of the tools that have been created to help the classroom as a whole.
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